Assorted musings

My partner and I decided to brave the Black Friday crowds and got up at 6 a.m. to do some bargain hunting.

We planned to head to Circuit City first, given that its day-after-Thanksgiving sale had the most things we wanted. When we arrived at the suburban Los Angeles store--nearly two hours after the store had opened--there was a long line of people just waiting to get in the store.

Figuring that the most-sought-after items were likely gone anyway and that the line might be shorter in a few hours, we headed to the nearby Best Buy in Sherman … Read more

Getting ready for work this morning, I caught a Today Show interview with the parents of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old that I wrote about on Saturday, who committed suicide last year after being taunted on MySpace.

Meier believed she had been chatting on the social network with a boy named Josh. At first, "Josh" sent friendly messages, but after a few weeks, he abruptly turned accusatory and insulting.

Meier's parents found out several weeks after their daughter's death that Josh was actually not a boy, but rather the fictional creation of adults, including the mother of … Read more

It's an unimaginably sad story.

Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl who has struggled with issues of self-esteem and depression, is greeted on MySpace by an older boy. He strikes up a flirtation with her over a series of weeks. Then, inexplicably, he starts sending accusatory messages, then nasty ones.

Megan, crushed by the turn of events, takes her own life.

Further twisting the tragedy is the fact that the boy wasn't a boy at all. Rather, he was the creation of adults, including the mother of one of Megan's friends, a girl with whom she had a … Read more

Hanukkah came early at my house Sunday.

After an unspectacular debut in the office Friday, I added Guitar Hero 3 to my holiday wish list. Luckily, my partner, AJ, obliged and got me the Wii game Sunday. After putting the virtual guitar together, I was off and strumming.

The embarrassment of getting repeatedly booed off the stage was fresh in my mind as I unpacked the guitar and set to practicing. Luckily, things came more easily in the privacy of my home and, with only a couple of tries, I managed to complete both "Slow Ride" and "… Read more

As ghouls swished gently over my head, it was as if the floor was shaking.

No, wait, that was the floor shaking.

At first I wasn't sure if 3D movie technology had advanced even further than I thought. But it turns out that Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas wasn't supposed to be that scary.

The crowd at San Francisco's Sony Metreon mall took the 30 seconds of rolling in stride, but there were all sorts of whispered queries as to whether that was the movie or an earthquake.

And when the lights came on after … Read more

When daylight saving time came two weeks early this year, there was concern that there might be a host of problems. There were some, but like the Y2K bug, there was not widespread mayhem and chaos as the movie-of-the-week industry might have hoped.

But Congress didn't just spring forward a little early this year. It's also is making us wait a week longer to fall back. Instead of changing this past weekend, we don't go back until next weekend. I thought most of the gadgets would know, but it appears not all of them got the message. … Read more

Welcome.

So what the heck is this Beyond Binary blog anyway?

The idea is to give more space to some of the best parts of my job as a reporter for CNET News.com--helping to connect the dots, talking about where things are headed in the industry, and telling some of the stories behind the stories I write.

As for the title, I wanted something to suggest that there's more to technology than just the code that underlies the products. What's really interesting is the way technology makes our lives simpler, or more difficult. Technology can help connect … Read more